Henchmen (9 page)

“Us?” asks Eve, “We’re going shopping.”

Frank likes to say that hacking a building is no different from hacking a computer: both tasks require you to find alternate ways into a system. All systems have points that aren’t necessarily intended to facilitate ingress and egress, but those points exist and can be used for that purpose nonetheless.

Radula is located behind the dollar movie theater on San Mateo Boulevard.  It’s a single-story, unmarked building in a sizeable lot surrounded by concertina wire. The fences sport signs that let you know that not only is trespassing not allowed, but the
use of deadly force is authorized
in case of trespassers.

“Don’t park directly in front of Radula,” Frank says as we’re driving in.  “Let’s park in the theatre parking lot and walk back here.”

“Yeah, then people will just think we’re here to see the latest Jim Carrey flick.  Much better,” I respond. 

As we’re walking around the theater to Radula, Frank tells me his theories about hacking buildings.

“Every building has weaknesses.  Most security is designed to just make it too much of a pain in the ass for the average person to break in,” he tells me.

I laugh.  “You’re hardly average, right?”

“Right.  I’ve got experience, but nothing I do is exactly rocket science.  It’s finding the holes in the system.  If I need a rocket scientist to get to through a tricky part, I call in Jean.”

“No wonder you guys get along so well.  The family that breaks the law together, stays together,” I say.

“Well, that, and the sex is great.”

“TMI, bro.”

“Get over it, man, love is love.  And nude love is nude love.  And I love the nude love.”

“All right, I get it,” I tell him.  “How are we going to seduce the skirt off this place?”

“We start by getting the lay of the land.  The concertina wire is professionally laid.  I’ve seen places that don’t put the concertina wire over the gates - here it’s all over.  There’s no guard shack, and it looks like the main gate is mechanical.  I don’t see a keypad or anything, so I’m guessing they’ve got some kind of sensor system, either on the vehicles themselves or carried with the drivers.”

“Damn,” I say.  “I guess I was just focused on the ‘we will kill you if you trespass’ signs.”

“That’s what they have them for.  Don’t get me wrong - they probably will kill us if they find us, but they’re hoping they won’t have to.  First layer of security: scare people into not looking any further.  Ignore all that for now and look further.  Do you see anyone wandering around?  Guards or anything?”

I look.  The yard looks empty, almost deserted.  “No.  All’s quiet on the western front.”

“There are four cameras, one on each corner of the building.  See those little black dots?  Cameras.  The second layer of security: difficult to fool, but not impossible.

“Everything that happens here happens inside.  Notice, you can’t see in?  The windows are all mirrored, and I’m willing to bet there are blinds on the inside that will make it difficult to snoop.  That’s their third layer of security. 

“It would be nice to see what’s going on inside.  Whatever’s going on in here, they’re working hard to keep it quiet without looking like they’re keeping it quiet.  There’s no name on the building - no address, nothing.  Either you’re supposed to be here, or you’re supposed to just keep right on going. 

“Let’s walk around the perimeter and see if anything pops up.”

We walk the perimeter trying to look inconspicuous.  I hope people walk around this place all the time, but I kind of doubt it.  At the nearest point, the building is a good 50 feet from the fence, and there doesn’t seem to be a damn way to look into the place.  No one’s moving.  I’d think the place was deserted, except for the fresh tracks in the dirt parking lot.

“Is it just me, or does this place look almost desperately innocuous?” I ask Frank.

“Yeah, something feels off about this joint,” he says.

“The license plates are all New Mexico, though - not a government plate anywhere.  Save for the razor wire and the signs, I’d think these guys were selling farm equipment or something and drive by without a second thought.”

“Set back in here, away from the main drag, most people have probably never noticed this place.  Even the few who did notice probably ignored it,” he says.

“It’s like a building made of Teflon - kind of a neat trick, if you can pull it off.  So, how do we get in?”

“I’m going to assume the place is guarded 24/7, and the cameras may have night vision.  My guess is there’s a vault on the inside that we’d have to get through, and probably a Mosler safe or two inside that will need to be opened.  We’ll need a distraction on the outside, go in the back through that door by the AC.  Probably need to silence a guard or three.

“Can you crack a safe?” Frank asks.

Moslers are government approved storage safes.  Think of a huge hunk of metal with a lock on the front and you’ve got a good idea of what they are.  They’re usually guaranteed to take at least an hour to break through and that’s if you’re not worried about making a lot of noise.  Do it quietly and cracking one can take upwards of six hours.

“No.  I can barely open those damned Moslers even when I have the combo,” I tell him.

“We can probably get Eve to rip the safes apart.  I imagine we can have Jean tap in from the outside and crack any computer security.  It’ll take him time, and we’ll need to hook him into the system, since I doubt there’s much in the way of external network access.”  He’s still thinking about how to get in.  I can see the gears turning in his head.

We’re almost around the place and can’t afford to take another lap.  “Let’s head back,” I say.

“Yeah.  Yeah.  I can crack this nut, I just need some time,” Frank mutters. I believe him.

Back at the ranch, Jean is excited, which means he’s found a huge problem, and a way to either fix it, or a way to get around it.  Hacker enthusiasm spawned from cracking the uncrackable.  I’ve never hacked a system - I was just a programmer - but I understand the enthusiasm, since there’s nothing like solving a problem.  That may just be why our country’s so fucked up: no one gets excited about solving problems anymore. They just get excited about pointing out problems.

“Radula doesn’t even have a fucking website!” Jean tells us while he’s pacing around the living room.  “That’s how far off the grid they are, they don’t even have a fucking website!  Everyone has a fucking website!  Certs mints had a website that told you abso-fucking-lutely nothing about Retsyn.  They didn’t tell you thing one about what the shit Retsyn is, but they had at a website that at least fucking mentioned Retsyn!  Radula?  Not a goddamned thing.”

“Jean, you know decaf coffee still tastes pretty good, right?” Frank asks him, rolling his eyes.

“I made a cappuccino with caffeinated water, so what?  I need energy to work!  I am an artist and you don’t criticize how an artist works!  You may criticize the final piece, but you never criticize the method!”  His eyes are manic and his hands are constantly gesturing around the place while he walks.

“Do you have anything useful to say, or should we wait until this passes?” Eve asks.

“I found out what Retsyn is, I found out what Radula does. I am the rat in the wall, stealing the Twinkies from out your pantry!” Jean shouts.

“OK, he’s lost it.  ‘From out your pantry?’  Who talks like that?” Jessica asks.

“He likes to get good and wired and the hack the living hell out of things.  He does this all the time,” Frank tells her.  “One time, when he erased our tax bill at the IRS, he was up for a solid week mainlining caffeine.  No, I’m not kidding.  He’ll probably sleep well after the caffeine wears off – which will be sometime tomorrow.”

“OK, Jean, tell us what you found out,” Eve tells him.

“Radula is so deep black they’re like a black hole.  They do government contracting, very specialized stuff.  I had to dig deep into the bowels of the Internet, but finally scrounged up a posting on Usenet from a guy who said he used to work for Radula.  By the way, can you guess how many former employees this place has?  Near as I can tell?  One!  What the fuck kind of place has one employee who was pissed off enough to talk about anything?  Even then, this guy made a post 5 years ago and never followed up.  He’s probably dead.”

“Tell us what you know.  Please,” Jacob asks him.

“Radula was incorporated in 1976 as a government contractor.  Their public filings are all heavily censored, which you’re not supposed to do as a civilian entity, but they made a shit-ton of money, and if you make a shit-ton of money, you can do whatever you want.  Fucking government contracts, man.  License to print money.  Jessica, your dad worked for Radula for two years back in the early 2000s.  According to his tax records, he was an External Integration and Control Specialist, whatever the hell that is.”

Why can’t anyone have a normal job title these days?  I have a friend whose job title was ‘Research Evangelist.’  I still have no idea what he did.

“So, what did my dad actually do for Radula?” Jessica asks.

“He integrated and controlled external things,
duh
,” Jean says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Do you have any idea what Radula does, or what her dad did there?” Eve asks, getting exasperated.

“No goddamned idea.  The only thing I can tell for certain is they did some work downtown, and then something scary happened, and the company has been on a downward spiral ever since. There was a serious brouhaha about whatever bad mojo went down.  By the way, this was about the time your dad disappeared and the guy that wrote that post said he was excused from the company,” Jean says.

“Well, fuck,” Jacob says.  “We’re going to break into that place, aren’t we?”

Frank, never one to pass up a challenge, grins.  “Damn right we are.”

“Guys, I have a sinking feeling in my gut that this won’t be like breaking into Anodyne or the IRS building,” Eve says, concerned.  “We need information, but these guys are pros, and they’ve already gotten a black eye.  They’ll be on the ball.”

“Ok,” I say, “I’ve just gotta ask, why are we so interested in what her father did?  How does that help us?  No offense, Jessica, but we’ve done our bit.”

“I told you, I’ve got a feeling that something her dad did is important,” Eve says.

“How can her dad help us?” Frank asks.

“Look, what do you want us to do here?  What are we trying to accomplish?”  She points at Jean.  “Why are you here?”

“I want to change things,” he mumbles.

“For the better?” Eve asks.

“There is no way to change the situation for the better.  It’s all got to go away,” he responds.

Eve pauses for a moment.  “Right.  You can build a sparkling city on top of a sewer, but that won’t stop the stench of shit from rising up.  You’ve got to burn down everything and restart from scratch.  What do we have here to do that?”

“A computer hacker, an arms dealer, an infiltration expert, a security guy and an unknown quantity with a penchant for kicking ass,” I say.  “And you, of course.  Also something of an unknown quantity.”

Jessica raises her eyebrows.  I think she’s trying to figure out whether or not to be insulted.

“This is a good group,” Eve says. “No doubt about it.  But we can’t change the world on our own.  Whatever her dad was doing may help us.  You want to kill everyone in Congress?  You want to watch the world crumble?  You want to see riots in the streets?  We need something other than the six of us, some bullet-proof vests and ton of guns.”

“Like what? A bomb?” Jessica asks.

“Bombs are for terrorist pussies,” Jacob grumbles.

“Exactly,” Eve says.  “A bomb won’t fix things.  A bomb just looks like amateur hour.  Besides, we’d never get even a decent-sized bomb anywhere near Congress.  They’d cut us down and claim we had all kinds of Islamic connections.”

“Well, why can’t we just keep doing what we’re doing?  We’ve got resources, we’ve got a good place, all the money we need,” Jean asks.  He’s always been comfortable here and, like most people, he’s reticent to move outside his comfort zone.

Jacob snorts.  “My friends were gunned down by a government goon-squad.”

“I was beaten senseless because they wanted someone to blame.  Keep people scared and convince them those guys over there are the root of the problem,” Frank says.  “Works well until you get singled out as one of the roots.”

I sigh.  “I know of a Senator’s kid who got away with murder.”

“Right.  On all counts.  The corruption is so deep you have to burn away everything to get rid of it,” She points at Jessica. “I’m sure she’s important.”

“Didn’t you tell me to not trust visions?  That we have a way of making them come true?” Jessica asks her.

“Yes.  And it’s the making them come true part that I’m interested in.  I’ve seen people getting dumber and meaner and generally more psychotic.  Trust me, things will get worse,” Eve says.  “Things always get worse, and you can’t fix the problem by exposing the corruption, or killing a Senator, or burning down a city.  You’ve got to think bigger.”

“Fuck it,” I say, “I’ve got nothing going on that can’t wait.  Let’s hit the place.  At least it won’t be boring.”

“I’m in.  Anything to hurt these bastards,” Frank says.  I know he’s got a good reason to be bitter.  I’ve seen the looks he gets.  I’ve seen the police report from his assault, the one where they said he’d fallen down the stairs.  He’s just like the rest of us, though, carrying our wounds like armor and using our sins like weapons.

We may all be kind of crazy, but we’re all the good kind of crazy.

“Can we blow shit up?” asks Jacob, a gleam in his eye.

“Sorry, Jake,” Eve says.  “It’s probably best to keep this one quiet.”

“Well, shit.” Jacob sighs.

“Jean, you in?” Frank asks.

“How could I leave you alone out in the wild to get killed?  If you can get a wireless link, I can steal everything off their computers.”  Jean smiles.

“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” Frank grins.

“Well, Jessica?” Eve asks.  “Are you in?”

She thinks for a minute.  “Yeah, I’m in.  For now at least.”

“Jessica, do you have a picture of your dad handy?” I ask her.

“Uh, yeah.  Let me get it,” she says and disappears into the back of the house quietly.  She comes back with a Polaroid and hands the photo to Eve, who looks at it and passes it to Frank.  And so it goes and so it goes until the picture gets to Jean.

Jean looks at the photo for a sec and I can tell he’s ready to dismiss it and pass it off when he does a double take and his eyes get huge.  “Holy shitballs.  I’ve met this guy,” he says excitedly.

“What?” Frank asks incredulously.

“Yeah, yeah.  When I lived in that shitty apartment down by UNM, I used to see this guy.”

“You mean the shitty basement apartment next to the Rasta Simpsons mural?” Frank asks him.

Yes, there was once a mural of the Simpsons as Rastafarians painted on a wall in an alley behind the old salad bar place on Central.  The mural has since been painted over, but anyone who has seen it will always remember it.

“Yeah, the place with that crazy hippie bitch manager who refused to do anything at all on her day off,” Jean says, tapping the picture.  “This guy used to hang out in the alley.  He had a beard and generally looked like shit - smelled like shit, too - but it was definitely him.  I used to give him cigarettes.  I always thought he was just some random crazy, because he was always looking over his shoulder and talking about ‘them’ and how he was worried ‘it’ might get free.”

“
What
might get free?” Eve asks him.

“He never said, but every time I saw him he’d say it was always a good day because ’it’ hadn’t gotten free.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Jessica asks him.

“Uh, let me think. I moved out of that apartment a few years ago.  I saw him the day I was moving.  He waved and told me to stay away from shadows.”

“He may still be around,” I say.  “There’s a contingent of homeless people down in that area, because the college students give them money and food, and the cops are too busy busting the college students to bother with the homeless.  I think a bunch of them sleep in the park down on Coal Avenue, or in the cemetery down on University.”

Eve points at Jean, Jessica and me.  “You three - go check Jean’s old place out.  If her dad’s down there, it might save us some time.  Jacob, we need to get ourselves some quiet weapons.  Frank, find me a way into Radula.”